Armies of Liberation

It sounds like it a new training publication, a guide for students, like the two mags they have already aren’t enough. So if its AAIA, is it coming from al Nabi or al Wahishi, joking joking. Al Reimi is trying to rebrand AQAP as an embodiment of a prophecy, but he’s on the wrong side of destiny.

Update: yes its looking to be an instruction manual, based on the author.

5/24/10: Mutairi, who uses the nom de guerre of Abdallah al-Haj, was released from prison in Kuwait in 2007..The documents from the Yemeni rebels indicated that Mutairi, who since his release from prison in 2007 has become one of the top Al-Qaida figures in the Arabian peninsula, has asked a group called the Abdullah Azzam Brigades to assist Al-Qaida in Gaza because “they are fighting against the same enemy.” — Mutairi recently finished writing a detailed document in which he sets out the strategy that should be adopted against Israel and calls for a “missile campaign” from Gaza in order to stir Hamas out of its stupor and fight Israel.

Sounds like he is going to issue a new strategy document for AQAP.

Shipping live bombs on passenger planes doesn’t seem like a media exaggeration or an overstatement of the threat to me. The Saleh administration’s manipulation of the issue is well known though.

Sahwa Net- Yemeni lawmakers have affirmed that Yemen is in a pressing need to unite against numerous challenges, demanding to transparently probe the issue of suspicious packages sent from Yemen into Jewish synagogues in America.

They declared their refusal to any foreign involvement in Yemen, demanding the government to stop manipulating al-Qaeda issues, stressing that Yemen now suffers of fierce onslaught due to exaggeration of Al-Qaeda in Yemen.

They strongly slammed media polices that overstated the threats of al-Qaeda in Yemen, demanding to create far-sighted policies to address terror issues.

NPR: Only hours after White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said he was “confident” that a 22-year-old woman detained Saturday in Yemen had mailed the bomb-laden parcels, government officials in the country said they had released her, citing an apparent case of identity theft.

Update 2: Her father denies the HOOD report of being tortured.

Update: She was released this evening. And her name is Hanan Al Samawi not Sahar Al Samawi. Second HOOD statement below and seems to indicate the phone chip in the bomb was registered in her name. Update 2: Yemeni govt says she is a victim of identity theft.

Original: Yemen follows its normal practices, despite the global attention on this woman: illegal procedures during the arrest, incommunicado detention, failure to charge her or notify her family in a timely manner, beatings and cruel treatment, and denial of access by her lawyers. These are the National Security’s standard routines in dealing with journalists and activists in Yemen as well as random innocent people who get rounded up (alleged Houthis and southern protesters and so on). Its certainly odd she would leave her phone number when mailing the package if she was aware of the contents, and likely she was duped into taking part in the plot. Its not unusual for al Qaeda to exploit vulnerable people, this is the organization that uses mentally retarded children as suicide bombers and blackmails homosexuals to guarantee their participation. At the same time, women have taken a higher profile in the al Qaeda cult.

In related news, students at Sanaa University held a protest because they believe she’s a scapegoat. In an interview with the Yemen Post, the girl’s father, Mohammed Al-Samawi, an Engineer at the Ministry of Agriculture and Water, said his daughter is innocent and he believes that there is a “big misunderstanding.” The YP reports the suspect’s name as Hanan Al-Samawi, and that her mother, Amatulillah Mohammed, who was also imprisoned, is in bad medical condition according to HOOD.

Called on the Attorney General to assume responsibility

Hanan al Samawi subjected to torture, Moses Alnmrani, HOOD

Hood learned from private sources that Hanan al Samawi had been subjected to beatings and cruel treatment and humiliation during her arrest by members of the National Security Agency, and torture during the investigation within the prison with the National Security Agency, which is a crime punishable under international law and the law of Yemen. (Read on …)

Updated: Saudi sources indicate Al Fayfi flipped entirely after his surrender to the Saudis and was the source for the info on the parcel plot: Shaharah Saudi sources said that Alfaifi which occupies the number (20) in the wanted list of the most dangerous to the Kingdom of the Queen has revealed all information related to the transaction in exchange for not punishing him for trial and to ensure his release after the remand prison in the center of care and counseling.

Original: This Express article has an entirely different origin for the intel tip that began the search for the UPS packages–Afghanistan, where a bunch of intel dudes in a converted shipping container managed to save the world from Lockerbie 2. The significance of this scenario if true is that it would pin the attack back to Afghanistan/ Pakistan border area. The most significant global terror event prior to the UPS plot was the al Qaeda summit in Wazeristan that brought together Saif al Adel, Saed bin Laden, a variety of characters including Brits and Germans and our Yemen representative, the potentially former Fahd al Quso.

And this would make sense to the extent that AQAP learned to handle PETN from a Pakistani bomb expert, and there was another Pakistani who trained them on poison gasses, according to the governor of Abyan in an interview last year. The operational ties between the two organizations are significant.

Express: AL Qaeda bomb plotters hoped to stage a Lockerbie-style outrage over Britain.

Explosives found inside a modified printer ink cartridge on board a cargo plane at East Midlands ­Airport were primed to detonate in mid-air. The device was active when counter-terror police swooped on the aircraft early on Friday. Yemen-based terrorists had built the bomb to go off in British air space, just like the Lockerbie atrocity of 1988 which killed 270 people.

Home Secretary Theresa May yesterday said: “I can confirm that the device was viable and could have ­exploded. The target may have been an aircraft and had it it detonated, the aircraft could have been brought down.” ——– The alert was triggered by intelligence from a unit of GCHQ surveillance experts stationed in Afghanistan, the Sunday Express can reveal. Operating from a converted shipping container in Helmand, the team picked up the words “A wedding gift is being delivered”.

The phrase is an Al Qaeda code meaning a bomb is in transit. With the help of Saudi agents, GCHQ alerted MI6, which raised the alarm in London and Washington.

And investigators are taking a second look at the recent UPS cargo plane crash in Dubai on 9/3/10. Update: the packages were on two prior to arriving in the UAE and Inspire contained the words “cargo planes.”

WASHINGTON – Al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen offered a hint only a week ago for why they would target U.S.-bound cargo planes, the Daily News can reveal. That’s the type of American aircraft that delivered one of its Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s “commanders” to prison in Guantanamo Bay after the 9/11 attacks. AQAP leader Uthman al-Ghamidi wrote in the new issue of the online “Inspire” magazine that he was flown “onboard a cargo plane for a long journey” in 2002 from Afghanistan to the U.S. naval base in Cuba. Read more: NYDN

WSJ Officials said the two packages intercepted on Friday appeared to contain as much as four to six times the amount of PETN as AQAP used in the Christmas Day plot. Investigators believe both of the packages were shipped by individuals with possible links to the Yemen American Institute for Languages-Computer-Management, known as YAI, or the American Center for Training and Development, or ACT, officials said.

The National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms (HOOD) issued the following press release regarding the arrest of two women on suspicion of involvement in the attempted terror attacks on the United States via UPS. The student is Sahar Al Samawi, a fifth year computer sciences major, who was arrested along with her mom. The following is Google translated, original Arabic below.

Arrest of a student at the College of Engineering

Hood: the war on terrorism should not be at the expense of human rights

Moses Alnmrani

Sources close to see that the Yemeni security arrested the magic heavenly student in the Faculty of Engineering, a fifth year in the Department of Computer and her mother after enable security elements from entering the house through a connection from one of the friends of the student detainee in which it operates, and her father, an engineer in the General Establishment for Water and suffering and her mother, who was arrested with the disease chronic, according to sources in the family, the sources also confirmed the absence of any religious interests of the girl out of the ordinary detainee.

It is suspected Yemeni security relationship with the student detainee to send letter bombs were found in two planes according to media reports.

The source said official with HUD that the girl accused of sending letter bombs and the registration name and telephone number and a personal capacity, on the package is mined stupid flattening of the details of the global war on terrorism and contempt for the public’s ability to analyze and access to information (Read on …)

Update: al Asiri has “toxins training”: Asia One: According to Asiri’s resume at the Saudi interior ministry, he left the country at an undisclosed time to join Al-Qaeda after a series of 2003-2006 attacks, including assassination attempts and plots against oil installations. “Underwent arms training in Yemen on SAM-7 (rifle), Milan (anti-tank) missiles, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), explosive, toxins,” it says. And the governor of Abyan, al Masiri earlier said that Pakistani experts came to Yemen in 2009 to train AQAP on explosives and chemical weapons.

Ibrahim al Asiri is the brother of the suicide bomber Abdullah al Asiri who targeted Saudi Prince Naif in 2009, corroborating earlier reports that a well known terrorist was behind the plot. The devices match and the women who mailed the parcels, if that report is true, may have been used because they were low profile, leaving the question of the odd choice of addressees, the intended targets and goals. Asiri is thought to be in regular contact with Anwar al Awlaki.

Yemen parcel bombmaker believed to be al Qaeda terrorist Ibrahim Hassan Al Asiri

Telegraph: The man believed to have made the parcel bombs is Ibrahim Hassan Al Asiri, a Yemen-based terrorist described as one of the most ruthless and fanatical of all al Qaeda’s followers.

US intelligence officials say the detonator on one of the devices is almost exactly the same as one he is thought to have made for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called Underpants Bomber.

Originally born to a pious family in Saudi Arabia, Ibrahim is one of 85 people on the kingdom’s list of wanted terrorists. After serving jail time in his home country, he fled to neighbouring Yemen two years ago with his brother Abdullah to become key members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has bases in the lawless mountain areas beyond the writ of central government. (Read on …)

Yemen often initially blames the deranged loner. For example, the recent murder of a French engineer was said to be a personal matter, however the murderer was later found to be a member of the Yemeni security forces as well as an associate of Anwar al Awlaki.

Yemen Post: According to a senior governmental official who spoke to Yemen Post on anonymity, Yemeni security forces arrested two Yemeni women under suspicion of sending the packages to the United States.

The Yemeni official claims that the two women sent the packages in order to damage the reputation of Yemen and not on links of Al-Qaeda. He denied that Al-Qaeda had links to the packages that were sent.

The source confirmed to Yemen Post that the two ladies are believed to have tried to send the packages to Jewish schools in the United States.

At the same time, Yemen predictably began a duplicitous media campaign for internal consumption denying the bombs shipped from Yemen. Parliament criticized President Obama’s remarks and al Motamar, the paper of President Saleh’s powerful ruling party, continues the misleading meme with an article entitled, Yemen says UPS planes never take off or land in it. “The official wondered how the media mentioned the name of Yemen reporting that an explosive device was found onboard a cargo plane that landed in London coming from Yemen…We urge the media not to make hasty judgments about sensitive issues.”

And its working. One Yemeni wants to know, “Why do not expect that this work was done by America itself for military intervention in Yemen and the control of the strategic location of Yemen?” Another notes, “there are no direct flighs from Yemen to THE UK. How did this happen? can you tell us about this flight of the UPS cargo flight to London? I think that there is something wrong . It is your duty to find out the truth .Otherwise you are no…t journalist .You should write the truth and not just coping what you have heared please.” Another view holds, “This is a dirty game, that was played by these regimes (Saleh’s & Obama’s) and intellegent agencies and we, the citizens in both sides, end up paying the price.”

Meanwhile, the leader of AQAP Nassir al Washishi has bragged that the terror group infiltrated the security forces, and its a charge made by observers across the political spectrum. Yemen airport authorities are very good at preventing journalists and activists from leaving Yemen for human rights conferences. Packages not so much. There’s constant smuggling of a variety of products and persons into and out of Yemen.

The air ports are under the authority of the National Security Organization. President Saleh’s nephew, Ammar Mohammad Abdullah Saleh, is the de facto head of the intelligence organization, which spends much of its energy attacking Saleh’s political opponents, critics and journalists.

As they are denying there are any UPS flights out of Yemen, Yemeni police seized 26 suspect parcels , “A security source said that employees of an unnamed air transport company, and employees from the Sanaa airport cargo-handling division, had been detained for questioning by authorities Saturday.” Also US authorities confirmed the presence of PETN in at least one of the packages. The specificity of the tip from Saudi Arabic indicates they have managed to penetrate AQAP and/or Yemeni tribes in the area which may lead to a fracture among the cult’s leadership.

A package containing a toner cartridge with wires attached to it and white powder and thought potentially to be a bomb was shipped from Yemen to Chicago. It was discovered on a lay-over in the UK, prompting a sweep of other UPS planes in New Jersey and Philadelphia. Other reports indicate all 10-20 packages from Yemen while suspicious were cleared. One report has the packages shipping to a synagogue in Chicago. Frances Townsend tied the incident to, “a tip from a very credible US ally who provided some, I’m told, very specific information about packages coming out of Yemen.” There’s also reports of radioactive substances and that authorities in the UK found 200 to 300 grams of TATP, an explosive used by suicide bombers, along with a cell phone.

Yemen denies: Mohammed al-Shaibah, Air Cargo Director for Yemenia Airways said to Yemen Post, “No UPS cargo plane left Yemeni lands over the land 48 hours. These accusations are false and baseless.” He added, “No UPS or DHL cargo packages heading to Chicago through Yemen took place in the last 48 hours as well…All packages are checked very carefully in Yemen, and there is no evidence to prove that this package came through Yemen.” UPS shipments coming out of Yemen are put on other carriers, so in this respect Shaibah is correct.

There’s so much organized smuggling in Yemen, the entire shipping system is compromised

White House statement: Last night, intelligence and law enforcement agencies discovered potential suspicious packages on two planes in transit to the United States. Based on close cooperation among U.S. government agencies and with our foreign allies and partners, authorities were able to identify and examine two suspicious packages, one in East Midlands, United Kingdom, and one in Dubai. Both of these packages originated from Yemen. As a result of security precautions triggered by this threat, the additional measures were taken regarding the flights at Newark Liberty and Philadelphia International Airports.

Update: WSJ U.S. officials say two military fighter jets are escorting a commercial airliner from the Canadian border to New York City. The plane is carrying cargo from Yemen…Authorities on Friday were investigating whether suspicious packages shipped aboard cargo planes from Yemen to the U.S. were part of a terrorist plot.

Update 2: Officials in Dubai report explosives were found in the package en route to the US from Yemen.
WRAL: A suspicious device discovered in an air cargo shipment in Dubai that was headed for the U.S. contained explosive materials, an official UAE security source said Friday.

Update 3: Marib Press reports: The diplomatic source pointed out that the initial information indicates that the person who sent the packages “has a long history of terrorism.”

Update 4: President Saleh pledged his full cooperation to President Obama in a phone call. Obama was briefed before the first package was found.

Update 5: Tip came from the Saudis, as did the tip to France after the surrender of al Fayfi.

Its an illogical or immature target. The conversion of the ink cartridge is somewhat reminiscent of the March 2009 attack on the South Korean tourists where the terrorists rigged a picture frame and a cassette player as IEDs. I can’t wait to see who is the long time terrorist who shipped the packages, but mailing a bomb from Sana’a seems rather a rather complicated way to blow a synagogue in Chicago.

A write up on the lax security at Sana’a airport yesterday:

CBN: Here are a few interesting details on Yemen that I became aware of this afternoon after speaking with an intelligence source who actually flew out of Sana’a, Yemen to Dubai yesterday, around the time the explosives were found.

1) The source noticed several things which seemed strange or outright alarming at Sana’a International (El Rahaba) airport in Yemen. For one, according to my source, pre-teen boys were pulling bags out of x-ray machines and essentially acting as porters, complete with uniforms. And you thought TSA had problems.

2) The source noticed a good deal of large bags, “30 or 40 of them,” being brought by porters (grown adults, this time) to the personal baggage terminal, rather than to the cargo terminal, which seemed odd. Given the conditions my source described, it obviously isn’t very hard to imagine a suspicious package making its way onto a plane flying out of Yemen. (Read on …)